Domenico Corvi

Domenico Corvi

Domenico Corvi (1721–1803) was an Italian painter at the close of the 18th century, active in an early Neoclassic style in Rome and surrounding sites.

Biography

Corvi was born in Viterbo. After some early works in Viterbo and Palestrina, Corvi moved on to Rome to work under Francesco Mancini. He worked in a Roman milieu where late-Rococo of Pompeo Batoni and the incipient Neoclassicism of Anton Raphael Mengs coexisted, and fashioned a style in between. His first major set of independent works in Rome are a series of canvases (completed in 1758 and currently in Vedana, commissioned by the Cardinal Domenico Amedeo Orsini and including the altarpiece of St. Michael Archangel for the church of Trinità dei Monti. In 1756, along with Vincenzo Strigelli and Anton Angelo Falaschi, he frescoed the Viterbese Oratorio del Gonfalone. The patronage of the Antonelli family gains him the commission for three altarpieces (1754 and 1756) for the church of Senigallia. He also painted for the church of Saint Marcello and a series of historical canvases for Palazzo Barberini.

Corvi frescoed ceilings for the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj and Borghese between 1770-78. In the Borghese villa, he frescoed a Triumph of Apollo (1771) and an Aurora(1782). Again for the Borghese family, he helped restore the capella Paolina in Santa Maria Maggiore and the Loggia of Lanfranco in the casino. He also painted for the church of San Marco, and the Palazzo dei Conservatori. From 1774-1778, he completed canvas cycle for the Swiss Abby of Solothurn. Corvi joined the artists’ Accademia dell'Arcadia. He painted The Miracle of Saint Joseph Calasanz Resuscitating a Child in a Church at Frascati for the order of Piarists (Scolopi). The painting was made to conmemorate the canonization of the saint on July 16, 1767, and is now in the Wadsworth Atheneum. The Charity of St. Thomas of Villanova was painted in 1795 for the church of SS. Trinità of Viterbo.

Corvi died in 1803 in Rome.

References

• Renaissance to Rococo; Masterpieces from the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Edited by Eric Zafran. (2004) Yale University Press. New Haven and London. pp90-91.
• http://www.italica.rai.it/index.php?categoria=biografie&scheda=corvi

Persondata
Name	Corvi, Domenico
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1721
Place of birth
Date of death	1803
Place of death